Funding for problem gamblers

New group forms to provide a permanent source of money

By SAM SKOLNIK, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Published
10:00 pm PDT, Monday, May 24, 2004

Jennifer McCausland, the citizen-activist who has fought unsuccessfully for a state program to treat Washington's problem gamblers, yesterday announced the formation of a Seattle-based group dedicated to securing a permanent funding fix.

"We've got a public health crisis on our hands as it is," said McCausland, a former state deputy insurance commissioner who is funding the effort out of her own pocket. "The last thing we need is more gambling."

McCausland is trying to gain public commitments from a majority of state legislators before the new legislative session in January for a proposed bill that would demand $12 million from the state's gambling industry to fund problem gambling prevention, treatment and public awareness. If a majority of senators and representatives do not publicly commit, McCausland says she will file a citizen's initiative to try to enact the law.

Though the program would be run out of the Department of Social and Health Services' Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, the bill does not spell out exactly which gambling purveyors would pay what amount to fund the new program, though it would be proportionate to each organization's revenues.

McCausland's renewed efforts come amid a backdrop of close calls and bitter defeats last legislative session in Olympia. Though several prominent lawmakers and even some gambling providers had signed on to its intent, gambling treatment legislation failed at the last minute.

Gambling revenues in Washington grew to more than $1.3 billion last year, more than double the revenues reported in 1998.

At the same time, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in a series on the topic, problem gambling has grown at a similar clip -- wreaking havoc on thousands of lives and adding about $78 million a year to the state's social costs.

But Washington does nothing to treat the problem gamblers it has helped create by allowing legalized gambling to flourish. A $500,000 treatment program funded by the Washington State Lottery's Mega Millions game was instituted in late 2002.

The program had proved successful in reducing problem gambling, but the money ran out last June, and efforts to revive it have failed.

A second mission of McCausland's group is to go after current and future gambling expansion efforts in the state, such as Eyman's proposed ballot measure, Initiative 892.

That measure would raise money to slash property taxes by about $400 million by allowing as many electronic "slot" machines into non-tribal businesses with gambling licenses -- such as private card rooms, bars, taverns and bowling alleys throughout the state -- as the tribes have been allocated.

Currently, the state's tribes operate about 14,500 of those machines in their casinos.

Eyman says about $1.1 billion would be generated -- nearly doubling the gambling industry's net receipts in Washington last year. Thirty-five percent of that would go toward property tax relief.

The measure would also earmark 1 percent of those funds for problem gambling treatment, an amount Eyman says would total about $11 million, though critics say the number is greatly exaggerated.

If enough signatures are gathered, voters could decide the issue in November.

Eyman says he is unfazed by McCausland's efforts.

His initiative, he says, would help with the same problem she is addressing.

"The fact that it solves the problem that she is seeking to solve actually helps the initiative," he says.

McCausland replies that allowing a significant gambling expansion would just feed the largest untreated illness in the state.

"Gamblers' losses should not be subsidizing property tax cuts," she says. "That's just wrong."